The fallacy of discrete authentic leader behaviours: Locating authentic leadership in interaction

Abstract

The concept of authentic leadership is increasingly the focus of much leadership scholarship, and many have called for a review of the basic assumptions that underpin it. Taking an interactional approach to authentic leadership (AL) and using naturally occurring workplace interaction as data, we seek to question two basic assumptions of AL scholarship, namely (1) that authentic leadership emanates from the atomized leader and (2) that there is a causal logic to it so that authentic leadership behaviours are the cause of follower outcomes. Addressing the research questions – what is the nature of the empirical phenomenon that is called AL and where can this be ontologically located? – our findings indicate that these two fundamental assumptions that underpin current AL research are not justified. Rather, what is taken to be AL is better understood as a collective and collaborative achievement, which can neither simply be attributed to the leader nor can the leader’s actions alone lead to follower outcomes.

The gaslighting of authentic leadership

“…We contend that the reason why ALT has such appeal is that it captures a real phenomenon that even its critics have experienced. Hence, we think it is more productive to advance alternative perspectives of this phenomenon and suggest refinements to the theory, as is the case for many of the articles published in the Leadership special issue (Bradley-Cole, 2021; Larsson et al, 2021; Whittle, 2020; Iszatt-White et al, 2021) and elsewhere (e.g. Iszatt-White and Kempster, 2019), rather than attempting to gaslight scholars and practitioners alike by trying to convince them that a phenomenon they have personally witnessed is not real.…”

“…As numerous scholars have emphasized, real phenomena that practitioners witness and experience is what we should be seeking to study as management theorists (Latham, 2019; Mitchell, 2018; Rousseau, 2020; Schein, 2015; Staw, 2016). In fact, one of the strengths of the theory is that practitioners see value in it, which we see as a good thing given the frequent lament in the management discipline about the scholar-practitioner divide (Latham, 2019; Tourish, 2019). But, what Einola and Alvesson (2021) seem to be saying – implicitly, if not explicitly – is, “Don’t believe your senses.…”

Blackboxing leadership: Methodological practices leading to manager-centrism

“…Of interest here is that more often than not, those questions include far more than reporting on observations of behaviors. Such questions typically ask respondents to assess and judge the focal person’s inner states, intentions, beliefs and feelings (Banks et al, 2021; Larsson et al, 2021). Moreover, and more to the point here, the behaviors in focus are typically described on a relatively abstract level, and the respondent asked to assess whether this happens more or less often (rather than, for instance, reporting precisely how many times during a time interval).…”

The vertical and horizontal dimensions in the social construction of leadership: A case study on the social media followers of the Croatian politicians Zoran Milanović and Miro Bulj

“…Luebke (2021: 11) adds one more element which is relevant here, namely immediacy, which captures the “real-time communication reflecting spontaneous thoughts from a politician’s mind without revision or reflection”. It is important to clarify here that the research on authenticity in leadership is not uncontested 3 (Bradley-Cole, 2021; Larsson et al, 2021; Iszatt-White et al, 2021; Ladkin, 2021), with Alvesson and Einola (2019, 2022) criticizing both the ontological-theoretical foundations and empirical research of authentic leadership (studies). They conclude that “authenticity is just very difficult to grasp and study in a straight forward manner” (Einola and Alvesson, 2021: 485).…”